Nolan's 14

UPDATE: Well, I'm elated to report that we did it. Jared Campbell and I became the fifth and sixth people to complete the Nolan's 14 route. More to come, for now check out the photos I tweeted: from the top of the most intimidating climb, Mount Harvard (peak #8), Jared throwing up on our way up Yale, and from the last of the 14 fourteeners - Mount Shavano

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The summit of Mount Elbert. 14,440 feet above sea level.

The next adventure starts in less than 23 hours! Tomorrow, Friday at 9am Jared Campbell and I are going to start Nolan's 14. The route bags 14x "fourteeners" - peaks that top out higher than 14,000 feet in elevation - in one shot. With no real "set course" there are quite a few available route options. Jared has had his eye on this one for a while and what he's planned ended up being about ~90 miles with 45,000 feet of vert. We're starting at the Leadville Fish Hatchery and going South.

For a couple years Nolan's was run as a race, before the Forest Service shut it down. To be considered a finisher, you have to complete the route in under 60 hours. The fastest it's been completed 56 hours. In it's 13 year existence only four people can claim to be Nolan's 14 finishers: Mike Tilden, Blake Wood, Jim Nelson and John Robinson - legends all.

Considering that we will spend most of our time above 13,000 ft it's an intimidating proposition, but one I'm very very excited about. This adventure will more akin to my Adventure Racing days than my UltraRunning days. This means a fair bit of wrestling with sleep monsters and other unmentionables. We've got Jared's wife Mindy and pro photog Fred Marmsater as crew, so we won't likely have much in the way of excuses on that end.

If you wanna follow along, Jared setup a sweet Tracker Page Here - http://trackleaders.com/nolans14